For several years now, I’ve been reading recipes that included sauces and marinades made with soft drinks; root beer, 7-up and Coke. Well “bleah” I said and just marked it down to yet another symptom of American cooking blues. But yesterday, while paging through my Rachel Khoo cookbook, I noticed that she, a Brit, had made the French classic, duck a l’orange, using the French soft drink, Orangina for the sauce. Well that was so bizarre and I had duck legs in the freezer and time on my hands, so I just had to try it.

True to our new “exit mode” habits, Jade and I spent the morning trailing through the market, lingering over cups of coffee and chocolate at the cafe and, in general, loitering. While in the cafe, I bought 2 bottles of Orangina and borrowed a glass for the photo shoot 🙂 Cute glasses! I’ll have to see if Jacques can get me a half dozen from the distributor.

Smitten Kitchen is one of my all time favorite blogs. She is both a photographer and cook that I have always admired. Sensible, yet adventurous, I almost never feel the need to tamper with her recipes. I remembered one of her recipes from back in the day for caramelized shallots that I thought would go well with the duck http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/04/caramelized-shallots/. They did.

So what did we think of the duck a l’Orangina? It was good. It was very good but it could never compare to the “real thing”. Still it was fun to try 😀

Duck a L’Orangina

4 duck legs

Zest and juice from 1 orange

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cumin

1/2 cup Orangina (has real juice in it) or Fanta

2 tbsp Cointreau

1 tbsp wine vinegar

Pinch of salt

4 oranges cut into segments

Mix the zest, orange juice, olive oil, salt and cumin together. Place the legs in a zip lock, pour in the marinade, squish around and refrigerate for 1-2 hours or overnight.

Pour the duck legs and marinade into a roasting pan, arranging the duck, skin side down and roast for 30 minutes in a 400 F oven. Turn it over and roast for an additional 30-35 minutes until nicely browned.

In a saucepan, reduce the Orangina and Cointreau to half, add the vinegar, salt and orange segments, then simmer for about 5 minutes. Pour the sauce over the roasted duck legs and serve.

I love it. Particularly because I have just completed a Duck a l’Orange post as part of my upcoming French sojourn series. I also break all the rules of classic cooking and the end result was pretty tasty. Love the Oringina concept. The headline made me laugh out loud.
Best,
Conor

Oh this does look like a fun and delicious dish! I must try it as I love duck. I’m with you… the recipes using canned soda are “bleh!”. But this one does look interesting. And I do love caramelized shallots, only I’ve always used a recipe from Gordon Hamersley. Love him. Probably too much!